The Heart is Treacherous in Many Ways
by Sisyphean Effort
Summary: History repeats itself. It's such a trite little bromide, but unfortunately true. Especially for Kisuke Urahara. Especially if it involves the last names of Kurosaki and Ishida. This is a story of love and betrayal, told across 2 generations... Slash. Mature themes. Ichigo/Uryuu. Isshin/Ryuken.
1. Prologue

_Dislaimer: I do not own Bleach_

_Note: This was not what I was originally going to write next. I was originally going to write something happy, in another fandom. But then life turned depressing, and my writing turned depressing with it. There's a severe angst warning in effect here. __Severe**. **__That being said, there's always the possibility of me bringing this out of the dark and into the light..._

_

* * *

_

The Heart is Treacherous in Many Ways

_Prologue_

Wagon wheels screeched a metallic sing-song as they slid across the pavement, with Jinta complaining every step of the way. "Ururu, you're getting too heavy." Or, "Damn, these wheels need oiling." Or, "Why does the manager need all these new shelves anyway?" And on and on he warbled. Finally Tessai, who was flanking the boy, said, "Stop whining, Jinta. We need more storage. Half the merchandise is sitting piled up on the shop floor." Tessai paused to hoist the pallet of broken down cardboard boxes beneath his arm; he moved them to sit across his shoulder instead. Jinta kept scowling as he reluctantly yanked the wagon filled with dense wooden shelves forward. Ururu, by silent contrast, sat on top of the heavy slats, fingers idly twirling a roll of packing tape, staring off into space. The pavement below their feet had turned a sickly orange beneath the rapidly setting sun. Tessai figured they would make it back to the shop just in time for twilight.

"Hey, when's freeloader coming back, anyway?" asked Jinta.

"Don't know," answered Tessai. Tessai knew that, despite the fact that Jinta always insisted on calling him 'freeloader,' the boy was fond of the Shinigami named Abarai Renji. He knew that he secretly looked forward to his visits.

"Eh, I don't see why Kurosaki gets to use that room now, anyhow." Jinta prattled on. "I mean, doesn't he have his own room at home? Doesn't he? And why is he and that other boy always hanging around in there now anyway?"

"Shh. Jinta, stop talking. You're giving me a headache." Tessai mumbled. He wished the boy would give all the incessant questions a rest. Mostly because he didn't want to address the actual reason why Kurosaki and that dark-haired Quincy boy were now always 'hanging out' in Renji's old room. Because the kid was far too young to understand such things...

In mutual silence, they rounded a corner that was currently occupied by an abandoned convenience store. Chaotic flashes of burning orange reflected in the empty shop glass windows, brighter than brightest sunlight. Tessai froze. In the distance, there were dark billowing clouds of smoke wrapped within twirling ribbons of bright yellow flame. _Oh, no! _Fear stabbed at his heart, swiftly, unexpectedly, like an assassin's knife, and he dropped the cardboard boxes to the ground and ran forward. Jinta, upon seeing the smoky columns and Tessai's distress, yelled, "Holy shit!" and ran after him.

The shop was a hellish inferno. Tessai's heart thudded like a bass drum as he neared the tower of rippling flames. Jinta appeared beside him, the combination of approaching dusk and roaring fire making his shadow dance wildly behind him. "What the hell happened?" he screeched over the chorus of crackling heat. Pieces of timber collapsed and fell. Tessai said nothing. He shielded his eyes and neared the blaze, the intense light of the flames flickering like a strobe light over his broad, bare arms in the descending twilight. The heat was intolerable. He wouldn't even make it to the front door. _Kisuke, what happened? Where are you? _Tessai's heart continued to pound in his ears, beating like the sound of distant thunder. _Why is this happening again? Why? _Tessai's mind flashed back briefly, back several years to another fire: To another scene just like this one, with the lingering 'A' at the end of the sign reading 'Urahara Shop' detaching and falling like a burning star to the ground. To another night just like this one...

He couldn't go inside the shop. The place was too far gone. _Please don't be inside, Kisuke, _Tessai mentally pleaded. As he turned from the front entrance, his heel stumbled over something on the ground. Tessai froze, staring at the object by his foot. Light rippled over the insignia in rolling waves of yellow flame, highlighting the etched symbols. With a trembling hand, Tessai reached down and picked up the discarded object. Seeing the troubled look on his face, Jinta asked, "What? What is it?"

Tessai clutched the insignia in his hand, but said nothing. _ Kurosaki's Shinigami representative badge. _Despite it being hot to the touch, Tessai felt an icy coldness sweep through his limbs, a counterpoint to the scorching flames. A numbing fear was freezing Tessai's insides, a fear of something that had happened several years ago. A fear that history was repeating itself.

The way that history _always_ repeated itself...

_End Prologue_


	2. Chapter 1:  Favors, Past and Present

_Quick author's note: These chapters will be a lot shorter than the ones I usually churn out. But on the bright side, that means this fic. will be updated a lot faster..._

* * *

Chapter 1: Favors, Past and Present

_A few months earlier..._

Urahara held the innocuous little ball up to the light. No bigger than a gumdrop, it looked harmless enough. But it wasn't. It was actually a modified soul and one created for battle. Like Ririn or Nova or Cloud. A decidedly dangerous little piece of equipment. Urahara stared at the little yellow ball a moment longer, then dropped it inside a velvetine jewelry box. He clapped the lid shut with a resounding _snap!_ He thought he should find somewhere safe to put it and not leave it out to be picked up at random, like he had Kon's. He didn't want a repeat of that situation, with Ururu or Jinta accidentally snatching the thing up and handing it off to some random customer. Best to always take precautions.

A long shadow fell across the wooden floorboards at Urahara's sandaled feet. Urahara peered out from under the brim of his floppy hat to stare into the molten brown eyes of Ichigo Kurosaki, his sometimes student. "Sensei," began Ichigo. "Can I ask a favor of you?"

"A favor, Kurosaki?" said Urahara. He turned and placed the jewelry box in a trunk containing several other unlabeled boxes. He pulled the lid shut with a protesting _squeak! _"It seems you're always asking for 'favors' and mostly on credit, as well."

A sheepish grin spread over Ichigo's face, and his eyes flicked away to stare at some vague point above Urahara's head. "I don't want any of your crazy inventions. That's not what I'm here about. I want...I mean, I would like...that is, if you wouldn't object..." Ichigo's hands were shoved deep into his pockets, and Urahara noticed that he was slowly starting to turn as red as his hair.

"Spit it out, Kurosaki."

"What I want is...I mean, um, would you mind if I used Renji's old room, sometimes in the afternoon?"

"What a strange request, Kurosaki." Urahara frowned in confusion beneath the shadow of his striped hat. "Why, whatever for?"

Ichigo's sneakered feet drew nervous circles on the floorboards. The sheepish grin was quickly sliding into one of acute embarrassment. "Well, you see, sensei-"

"Yes?" Urahara prompted.

"Uryuu and I-"

Urahara's eyes widened briefly beneath his hat at the casual mention of the Quincy boy's name.

"Anyway, Uryuu and I would like somewhere to go to, um, meet. You know."

Urahara picked up his fan and flicked it open, waving it in front of his face in order to hide his somewhat distressed expression. "..._somewhere to go to, um, meet. You know." _The phrase kept echoing in Urahara's head. _Oh, and what do I know, Kurosaki? That you and that Quincy are looking for some place private to go and make out? That it was just a matter time before the two of you got together? That history has a really funny way of repeating itself? And that somehow, I'm always the one stuck in the middle..._

"Alright." Urahara answered curtly.

Ichigo's head lifted, and his face instantly brightened. "Really? You mean it? You don't mind? It's just...it's just...my little sisters are always listening at my door these days, and Uryuu..." Urahara watched tiny frown lines dig harsh, vertical trenches between the shinigami boy's eyes. "Well, you see, Uryuu and his dad don't get along; he really hates Shinigami and-"

"-you don't have to explain everything," said Urahara, cutting him off. The fan continued to flutter back and forth, rapidly, like a hummingbird hovering in mid-flight. "The room is yours."

"Oh, thanks, sensei! You're the best!" With a happy, almost child-like grin on his face, Ichigo turned and practically bounced from the room of the shop, jumping up to tag the wooden arch over the doorway on his way out. Urahara watched him go, with a sinking feeling pulling at his heart. _ Like an anchor pulling at the prow of a ship._ A sinking feeling he tried his very best to ignore, as his thoughts flitted, unbidden, to memories long past...

_Several years earlier..._

_ "So will you let us use the room then?"_

_ The question doesn't fall from Ichigo's lips, but rather from those of his father, Isshin. A darker, broader, gruffer version of Ichigo himself. Isshin and Urahara are sitting together on the floor in the exact same room of the Urahara shop. The same floorboards, the same walls. The same sheepish expression on young Isshin's face._

_ Except behind him, in the doorway, hovers Ryuken, arms folded across his chest and a typically cold look glazing his elegant, icy features. Beautiful curly hair and an arrogant air. He reaches up a slender finger to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. It's the very same gesture that his son, Uryuu, always makes. Urahara watches Ryuken in the doorway, watches his empty expression. Then his eyes fall on Isshin's face. His look is expectant, lively. His is the expression of a man rapturously in love._

_ "Alright," says Urahara, agreeing. He doesn't know why, but there is a sinking feeling in his heart. A feeling that becomes more pronounced the moment his eyes alight on Ryuken's beautiful, icy face..._

_ The same beautiful, icy face that belongs to his son, Uryuu._

_End Chapter 1._

_Next update: tomorrow or Thursday.  
_


	3. Chapter 2:  Sapphire Blue and the White

_Author's note: time line wise, this is set early on in the series, right before the Bount begin to show up. I'm only mentioning this because certain things/events from the canon will pop up later on..._

_

* * *

_

Chapter 2: Sapphire Blue and the White

_Several months earlier..._

Dust motes danced and twirled beneath amber rays of afternoon sunlight lancing through the shutters. Urahara was walking through the main sales floor of the shop, a hot mug of tea in one hand, his fan idly fluttering in the other. There was the usual secretive grin on his face, and his eyes were far away in thought as he crossed over to the hall which led into the shop's tiny kitchen. Suddenly, to his right, a door swung open, and soft music issued forth, along with the high, dulcet tones of excited, youthful voices.

In a clumsy collection of flailing limbs, Ichigo all but fell from the room, pulling down his ringer tee as he careened into the hallway. There was a besotted, idiot's grin on his face, and his eyes were still pinned somewhere inside the room. That is, until he noticed Urahara's presence. Then he straightened himself up and cleared his throat.

"Good afternoon, sensei."

Behind him, the music continued to play, spilling soulful, imploring sounds of love into the hallway:

_You're the only one_

_ You're the only one_

_ I'm so wrapped up in a daze_

_ Hoping this is just a phase_

_ But when all is said and done_

_ I know you are still the one_

_ You're the only one_

_ You're the only one_

_ Cupid's bow has stung_

_Now you're the only one..._

Urahara angled the fan over his face, using the rice paper folds as both a mental and physical shield. He had granted Kurosaki use of the room weeks ago and had sometimes observed the two boys coming and going surreptitiously through the back of the shop. And up until now, he had managed to avoid running into them inside its walls. Until today...

"Good afternoon to you, Kurosaki." There was the rapid flutter of hummingbird wings, as Urahara purposefully kept his eyes away from the open door of the room. There was a frown in Urahara's voice as he said: "Going out?"

"I'm just going to pop around the corner to the convenience store for some drinks."

"Drinks?"

Noticing Urahara's tone, Ichigo quickly followed with: "Not alcohol. Not those kind of drinks. Just...normal stuff."

"Oh. Then why don't you come to the kitchen with me? I have a kettle on right now filled with a lovely black tea." The fan gestured toward the square green mug in his hand.

Ichigo glanced uncertainly at the mug. "Oh, I wouldn't want to inconvenience you-"

"-it's not an inconvenience, Kurosaki; it's just tea."

Ichigo's eyes shifted back to the open doorway, to the unseen occupant inside. "Well, if you're sure..." The besotted grin was slowly starting to make a comeback.

"Of course I'm sure. Come along." Urahara waved him forward with a limp flick of his fan. The shopkeeper walked by the open doorway. Without conscious thought (or so he believed), his head swiveled to look inside. Lying on his stomach across the futon, draped in a white sheet like some Renaissance odalisque, was Uryuu Ishida, his elbow bent and his chin propped up on the heel of his hand. Sapphire blue eyes met Urahara's through the open doorway. The boy's pale, pre-Raphaelite skin glowed wanly in the afternoon light, as pure and as white as the sheet that covered him. Urahara tore his eyes from the bed, his heart fluttering along with his fan. It was a bad idea, having these two boys around the shop. A really bad idea. _Obviously,_ he thought to himself, _I've been on my own for far too long..._

Urahara kept his eyes glued firmly on Ichigo's back as the two of them crossed the hall to the shop's kitchen.

_Several years earlier..._

_ "Why were you staring at me like that?"_

_ Urahara jumps at the sound of Ryuken's voice, ambushing him just outside the door of his shop. His clogs stop, pausing on the third step of his back yard landing, before they slowly resume their hollow clip-clop down to the grassy earth below. Leaning against the wall to his right stands Ryuken, in a plain white tee and jeans, an outfit so different from the stiff button down shirts and ties that his older self will wear. He's chain-smoking, as usual. He lifts the cigarette and takes a long drag, the pale eyes behind his glasses narrowing suspiciously at Urahara. Urahara can't even detect the young man's presence there, so adept he has gotten at masking his spiritual pressure._

_ "Whatever do you mean?" Urahara asks innocently. Even though innocence has no truck with him._

_ "Earlier, when you passed by our room. When you were talking with Isshin in the hallway?" Ryuken prompts him. With an aggressive flick, the Quincy tosses the cigarette to the ground. The butt still smolders, deep orange like a blood red sun. Questioning eyes round on Urahara._

_ Urahara watches the still flickering butt with anxiety. Ryuken is being careless, as usual, and the ground outside is so very dry. With a swift stomp of his clogged heel, Urahara snuffs out the cigarette. His gaze is purposefully angled at the ground, not at Ryuken. From beneath the safety of his floppy hat, Urahara murmurs, "I wasn't staring. Not on purpose, anyway."_

_ I've been on my own for far too long, the shopkeeper thinks to himself._

_ Ryuken shrugs, slouching against the wall like a lazy cat. "Fine. Suit yourself," he mutters quietly, staring off into the distance. Urahara watches him from the shadowed shelter of his hat, watches his cold, empty gaze staring off at nothing. Watching...he is always watching._

_ Flustered, Urahara turns and walks away, leaving Ryuken standing alone by the shop door._

_End Chapter 2._

_Note: song lyrics are from the Black Keys' "The Only One." The chapter title is a play on Michael Faber's "Crimson Petal and the White."  
_


	4. Chapter 3:  Darkly Dreaming

_I would like to thank my editor Jorgmund Piper for straightening out all the messed up tenses I had in this chap. as a result of my flu and all the nice, syrupy flu medicine that went along with it. Wee!_

_

* * *

_

Chapter 3: Darkly Dreaming

_A couple of months earlier..._

_ A fat, silvery moon is draped above the forest, like a bright porcelain knob on the doorway of the sky. Ancient, twisted tree branches criss-cross the wooded floor below, making a spider web over the lush green earth. A spider's web. That is exactly what he is walking into. Again. Even though he is running, running so fast in his black hat and cloak, running with Tessai by his side. He is running, but he knows, in the end, that he will be too late. Again. He also knows exactly what kind of horrors await him on the other side of the woods: the twisted bodies being engulfed by hollow masks, writhing on the forest floor, blood and carnage littering the clearing. And he knows that Aizen will be there, too; Aizen, with his cruel demeanor and even crueler intentions. Aizen, who manages to stay a step ahead of him, always manages to stay a step ahead of him, despite all of Urahara's guile and supposed genius. Aizen, who will come to say the words that will haunt him, that will be the final nail in his coffin:_

_"You're exactly the kind of man I thought you were..."_

"NO!"

Urahara awoke in his bed with a violent start, his heart drumming out a rapid tattoo of fear, his mind's eye still focused on all the fallen, contorted bodies on the forest floor. _Just a nightmare! A nightmare! It's not real! _His hands rubbed agitatedly at his face, they raked back through his shaggy, sand-colored hair. His eyes stared wildly around the room. He was at home, in his bed, and shades of oncoming twilight could be seen filtering through the blinds. There was no moon, no forest. A relieved sigh poured over his lips. _Not real! None of it real!_

_ Oh, but it was real, once! _his inner voice chided him. Ignoring it, Urahara grabbed up his favorite tea mug from the bedside table, and on wobbly feet he headed toward the shop's kitchen.

Indigo dusk greeted him through the shop's windows as he traversed the unlit hallway which led to the kitchen. He tried to put the nightmare/memory out of his mind. Instead, he allowed his thoughts to become occupied with more useful endeavors: like making hollow detectors out of simple cell phones, or using the physics of a Mobius continuum to open portals into other dimensions. Normal, everyday stuff. He was deep in thought, muttering slightly to himself, as he entered the stark black and white comfort of his own kitchen.

"What were you saying about a Mobius strip?"

Startled, Urahara's head snapped up. He had thought the kitchen empty. But no, sitting at the small kitchen table with an open school book in front of him sat Uryuu Ishida. His dark blue eyes were trained on Urahara, the lenses of his glasses refracting light in the gloom. His presence had gone completely undetected.

_Just like Ryuken, _thought Urahara.

Urahara's hands fluttered up to his hair, and he immediately fell into his harmless clown routine. He grinned sheepishly. "Mobius strip? Ha-ha! That was nothing...just nothing."

Uryuu arched one delicate, dark eyebrow and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. _Again, just like Ryuken. _"Isn't that an equation you would use, say, in a physics theory or for-?"

"Portals," said Urahara flatly.

"Portals?"

Urahara started gesticulating wildly with his hands. "You know, for creating portals to other dimensions, using the theory of a Mobius continuum, it's like the idea of a single strip that appears to meet, but doesn't meet, and it-" Urahara broke off, suddenly realizing that he was sounding like a lunatic. And lunatics could only be understood by other lunatics, which was why he and Mayuri always got along so well together...

...except, of course, Mayuri was also a psychopath who liked to dissect dead things.

"And that's something you're currently working on?" asked Uryuu quietly, with something akin to awe in his voice.

"Uh, not right now, no. Right now, I've just been making hollow detectors out of cell phones."

"Really? And do they work?"

"Sometimes. I haven't quite gotten all the bugs worked out yet. Sometimes they just randomly pick up the location of a Starbucks."

Uryuu's shoulders started shaking with gales of full-blown laughter. "Starbucks? You're kidding, right?" The boy's eyes were shining above the brightest, widest smile. And Urahara was suddenly struck by something: he realized that this was the first time he had ever seen the Quincy smile, ever. The boy was always so serious, so self-contained. Always with a down-turned mouth. The smile did wonders for him; it warmed up his glacial features.

_Not like Ryuken, _thought Urahara.

Gesturing at Urahara's empty mug, Uryuu said, "Would you like some tea? I already have some made." A small pause, another absent-minded push at his glasses. "That is, I hope you don't mind. I mean, Ichigo said-"

"-no, I don't mind at all. Please, make yourself at home here," Urahara answered quickly, settling down on a plump cushion across from the Quincy. After the nightmare, he had intended to put something a great deal stronger than tea into his mug. But refusing seemed impolite, so Urahara watched without protest as the Quincy boy poured the kettle.

Urahara glanced nervously about the room. He was nervous because, without the safety of his hat and fan and cane, he felt defenseless, too exposed. Urahara didn't pause to think about why he would need to defend himself or hide from the young boy sitting across from him. Instead, he opted to fill the awkward silence of the room with simple questions. "Where is our dear Kurosaki, anyway?"

There was the flash of cold sapphire, the return of the down-turned mouth. "Out fighting. There was a hollow sighting by the school."

"Oh." Urahara's eyes flicked toward the boy's bare wrist. _The silver cross was still missing. _Urahara fidgeted on his cushion; his hands scratched in agitation at his mane of untamed hair. After a tense moment, he said, "I'm sorry...I'm sorry that I let everyone know that you had lost your powers. I didn't realize that you hadn't informed them."

Uryuu's gaze was flinty. _Just like Ryuken's. _"It's alright. They were bound to find out sooner or later." There was a flat sort of resignation in his voice. That, along with something else. Something very close to sadness.

_It's hurting him, _thought Urahara. "Do you...do you wish you were out there? With him?"

Blue eyes narrowed into slits behind the glasses. "It doesn't matter what I wish. I can't-" The boy stopped and suddenly slammed the heavy text book shut; the action was forceful enough to jar the tiny table. Tea splashed over the rim of Urahara's mug, staining the surface, making blood-red rorschachs. He stayed silent as the boy stood up with his books. With slumped shoulders, Urahara whispered quietly, with downcast eyes, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's not your fault."

"It's my fault that I told your friends."

"Ah, because you always know everything. About hollows and detectors and Mobius strips. Everything." Urahara looked up at the Quincy's face. He had expected that sentence to sound patronizing, but it came out just as flat as all the others. The boy was staring down at him, with an odd, intense expression, and it was enough to force Urahara's gaze to the ground. His fingers itched for the concealing folds of his fan.

"You know, I never noticed, but...you look really young when you're not dressed as a beach bum," Uryuu said casually in a low voice, before turning and leaving the room. Urahara remained frozen in his spot at the table. He didn't turn his head but instead listened for the tell-tale clack of the back door being drawn shut. _Gone. Thank goodness for that. _Urahara let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and took a long sip of his tea. He didn't analyze why he felt so unnerved by his and Uryuu's exchange. He thought of only one thing:

It was pity that the boy didn't smile and laugh more often.

_End Chapter 3._

_Please don't get too comfy with all these rapid updates. Those will slow down come next week. That being said, the next update will be Saturday._


	5. Chapter 4:  The Things You Give Up

_Hmm, it looks like my bite-sized chapters are now blowing up into full blown cookies..._

_

* * *

_

Chapter 4: The Things You Give Up

_A couple of months earlier..._

Urahara was lying sprawled like a crooked letter X across a tatami mat before the shop's long windows, his hat covering his face. The late afternoon sun was shining like molten gold through the glass, kissing his limbs with a pleasurable warmth, and he found himself dozing off and on. Every now and then he would be jolted awake by a violent _thunk! or crash! _issuing from the floor below. Earlier, he had sent Jinta and Ururu below to move some boxes, and their efforts made it sound like a herd of Menos Grande was careening through his basement. _Noisy kids, _he thought idly. He flexed his fingers lazily; Benihime was tucked safely away in his cane, which sat on the floor just a hand's span from his grasp. In safety, he allowed his thoughts to wander; however, he didn't think about hollow detectors or Mobius strips or any of the like. No, he found himself thinking about how one would go about restoring a Quincy who had been stripped of his spirit energy to his former power...

His mind came up blank.

There was the barest rush of cold air, and Urahara's skin prickled at the loss of warmth. _Something's blocking the sun. _His fingers crept incrementally toward his cane before his hat was rudely pulled from his face. The sudden brightness hurt his eyes, and he squinted blindly as a flat, familiar voice above him said: "You really are a lazy creature."

Uryuu Ishida again.

Urahara didn't bother getting up. Instead, he regarded the boy from his supine position on the floor. He was still in his school uniform, and there was the beginning of a smile pulling at the left corner of his lips. _It would be better if those lips were smiling. _But the smile didn't have a chance to materialize before his eyes suddenly narrowed and his mouth went back to its usual down-turned position. Still holding Urahara's hat, the boy sat down on the mat next to him, his long ivory fingers absently caressing the candy-like stripes. A serious air emanated from his lean archer's frame.

"Can I...can I ask you something?"

Despite the flatness of his tone, Urahara didn't miss the subtle note of despair coloring the boy's words. Urahara sat up, giving the Quincy his full attention. "Of course. You can ask me anything..."

"..._but I can't promise that I'll give you a straight answer," _seemed to be the unspoken subtext. With him, it was always the unspoken subtext. Reality, to Urahara, was a fluid concept. And at his best, it was even one he was able to bend to his whims.

Uryuu's head was lowered, his eyes trained on the floor. Even with a sense of despair bowing his back, there was a hint of stubborn determination. Moments passed. Urahara waited silently for him to speak.

"My father..." Urahara tried not to visibly start at the mention of Ryuken. "Well, my father...you see...he came to me and he said...he said that he knew a way to make my...Quincy powers return, but..." The boy stopped speaking. Urahara narrowed his eyes; he didn't trust Ryuken. "But what?" Urahara finally prompted. He watched the boy's fingers as they twisted his striped hat in an unconscious gesture. After a moment he reached over and plucked it from Uryuu's grasp, plopping it back down on his head.

"He said that if he did this, then I had to promise. I had to make a vow-"

"-yes?"

"To never associate with any Shinigami, ever again," Uryuu finished morosely. The Quincy turned to stare directly at Urahara. "I think...well, I'm almost positive that he knows about Ichigo and me. And that he wants to break us up." Uryuu continued staring with a stony expression. Urahara reached for his fan, snapping it open and fluttering it in consternation.

"Why would he do that?" Urahara asked flatly. Even though he knew the answer already.

"Because he's a fucking asshole and he hates me! He always has and he always will! Because he's a callous, cold-hearted bastard, that's why!" Urahara leaned away, hiding behind his fan. The sheer amount of rage coming through those words was mind-boggling. Especially from someone who was usually so self-contained, so unemotional. Urahara watched the porcelain skin of the boy's neck turn red, watched the glint of hate invade his eyes. _Like father, like son._ Urahara peered at him cautiously over the top of his fan.

"But I won't give him up. Not Ichigo. I won't. I can't. But..." In the absence of the hat, the boy had started ringing his hands together; he seemed unaware of the gesture. The feeling of despair was wafting off of him like a noxious stench, relentlessly intense. "But I can't stand being like this! All helpless, with no power. I'm even less useful than Kon now; it's revolting. I can't stand it-"

The fan lowered. "Ishida that's not true," Urahara said quietly. "I meant what I said after that last training exercise; you did better than anyone. With only your mind. You're smart-"

"It doesn't matter; I'm a liability." Bitter poison coursed through words already dripping with despair. "And you know what else?"

"What?"

"I hate it every time Ichigo leaves to go fight hollows. I hate it. Because it reminds me of what I cannot do. Of what I no longer am. And I'm jealous of him, Urahara. I'm jealous of his ability to still fight. We both went into the Seireitei, and I came out with nothing, while he came back even more powerful." The boy paused, and cobalt eyes flashed toward Urahara, blue colored with shades of guilt. "It's terrible. I shouldn't feel this way towards him. But I do. And then I think, if only I could be like I was..."

"But that would mean-"

"Bowing to my father's wishes? Giving Ichigo up? Yes." Uryuu stopped speaking, and both he and Urahara stared down at the floor in silence.

Then: "I don't know what to do." Urahara watched the boy's marble-like profile: lit by the late afternoon sun, it made a beautiful picture of defeat.

"Tell me what to do," the boy whispered.

Urahara was startled by those words. "What?"

"You're a smart man. The smartest of us all. You tell me what I should do."

The fan took up its defensive position in front of Urahara's face again. "Ishida, I can't answer that. No one can answer that. Only you can decide-" Urahara's speech was cut off by a loud rapping on the window glass. Both Uryuu and Urahara turned to see Ichigo standing on the other side, a triumphant grin on his face as he waved Zangetsu at them in greeting. Urahara waved back and picked up his cane. Under his breath he said to Ishida, "I suppose you haven't told Kurosaki any of this?"

A low answer: "No."

"As I expected." Urahara angled the tip of his cane at the window and used it to pop open the clasp holding it closed. He poked the glass once and it titled outward, allowing Ichigo entrance inside. In his Shinigami form, he hopped through the window. "Good evening, sensei," he said to Urahara in cheerful greeting. He sheathed his zanpakuto and turned to Uryuu. "Sorry to keep you waiting. But duty calls, you know." He held out his hand, and the Quincy took it, allowing the other boy to pull him to his feet. "So, what have the two of you been talking about?" Ichigo asked idly.

"Nothing important," Uryuu said. Urahara watched Ichigo as he affectionately threw his arm around the dark-haired boy. Urahara could see the Quincy was making an effort to compose his glum expression. Ichigo bent to whisper something low in the other boy's ear, and then the orange-haired Shinigami looked up and said, "We'll see you later this evening for tea, sensei. Yes?"

"Of course. I'm but a lazy shopkeeper with nothing much to do," Urahara answered with his usual mischievous grin. He watched the two boys as they went down the hallway together; Ichigo was leaning into Uryuu, nuzzling his neck the entire way. _Besotted, just like Isshin was. _Urahara turned and pulled the window shut. He stared in uneasy silence at the swiftly sinking sun. Ichigo's casual display of affection had only served to bring Urahara's own loneliness into even sharper focus. _It's_ _so lonely here, in the place of my exile. _He found himself vaguely wondering where Yourichi was. She was always out roaming the world, as free and independent as a cat. She was fickle like a cat, too. Always coming and going as she pleased, sometimes disappearing for weeks on end. It had been a long time since she had visited him. He suddenly found himself longing for her company-for her sympathetic ear that always seemed to understand what was going on in that strange mind of his, even when no one else did. She was probably his only true friend.

He wished she would come back.

_Several years earlier..._

_ "I've decided to give it up."_

_ Urahara, Ryuken, and Isshin are all sitting together at the tiny table in Urahara's kitchen, drinking sake. Startled, Urahara lowers his glass and says, "Ryuken, what are you talking about?"_

_ "I no longer wish to be a Quincy."_

_ "So? What? You're going to stop being one, just like that?"_

_ "Yes, I am. Just like that." Flinty, slate-gray eyes stare at him over the rim of a sake glass. His voice is like ice; his face is all distant and pale and beautiful, like the moon. "It's distasteful, being bound by an outdated mandate that decrees I should spend all my days hunting for hollows. Isn't that what you wretched Shinigami are for, anyway?"_

_ "Now, Ryuken. Enough of that," Isshin says good-naturedly. How he stands Ryuken's constant railings against Shinigami, Urahara doesn't know. But the sake is working to loosen all of their tongues, and Ryuken is spouting more bile than usual._

_ "I'm not going to do it. I mean it. I don't care what my father says. It's ridiculous. I've made up my mind. I'm going to university. I'm going into business. I'm going to be a rich man and not some wretched sod who spends all his days hanging out in the forest with a bow and arrow." Ryuken takes a long draught; his sake glass clanks loudly on the table's wooden surface as he slams it down. Then he says, with finality:_

_ "I'm going to be the end of the Quincy line."_

_End Chapter 4._

_Next update: the middle of next week._


	6. Chapter 5:  Father Forgive

Chapter 5: Father Forgive

Night was falling fast, drawing its dark, voluptuous curtain across the sandy wooden floors and colorful square bins of the Urahara Shop. From the shelter of his back porch, Urahara watched the first tentative drops of rain fall, a gentle virgin offering from what would soon become a full-blown storm. Beside him on the porch sat Uryuu Ishida, legs crossed and an open school book in his lap. He was waiting for Kurosaki, who had left some time ago to track some hollows that had been spotted at a nearby construction site. Every now and then, a soft whistling sigh of consternation would issue from Uryuu's lips. Finally, Urahara asked:

"Are you worried about Kurosaki?"

A deep crease appeared between the Quincy's eyes. "Worried? No, not at all. It's just that-"

"Just what?"

"He's terrible at tracking spirit energies." Urahara smiled at this remark, his fan dipping to and fro idly, like the neck of a lazy crane.

"I know." Urahara said, and he watched a tiny, wry smile tug slightly at the boy's lips. _Plink-plink-plink! _ Fat raindrops pattered out a soft musical accompaniment on the porch's hollow bamboo rails. A few moments passed, and Uryuu suddenly wrenched off his glasses and rubbed tiredly at his eyes_. _There was a heavy, worrisome slump to his shoulders, and he seemed completely unfocused this evening. Urahara watched his face over the rice paper border of his fan. The boy had said nothing further about his father's ultimatum, not since he had brought it to Urahara's attention over six weeks ago. But the choice was obviously weighing on him. Urahara's eyes slid down to his bare wrists. The cross pendant remained conspicuously absent.

In a single swift movement, Urahara reached over and jerked the book from the boy's grasp and smacked it shut. Uryuu just stared in bleary-eyed disbelief at the empty space on his lap. "Why don't you go on home?" Urahara suggested gently. "I'll tell Kurosaki where you are when he returns."

Blue eyes narrowed into glittering chips of ice. "No, I don't want to-"

"-you should go rest," Urahara insisted. The closer Urahara studied the boy, the more he looked unwell to him. Months before, he had tried his best to avoid running into both him and Kurosaki underneath his roof. Now the Quincy was a near constant presence, an amiable companion on quiet evenings, and one that Urahara had slowly gotten used to. So used to, in fact, that he had begun to miss the more obvious points. Like the creeping, deteriorating state of the boy's health.

Uryuu regarded him stonily for a few seconds, then finally stood up. "Fine. If you insist, then I'll just go and lay down in the back room." Then something strange happened. One moment the Quincy was standing there, almost glaring at him; the next, it seemed that his legs simply gave way, and he toppled forward onto the railing. "Ishida!" Urahara was instantly on his feet, catching the boy mid-fall. Beneath his usual Pre-Raphaelite pallor, the boy was burning up, and Urahara was alarmed. He stared down in distress as the youth slumped heavily in his grip, clinging to him like a weak, new-born kitten for support.

"I'm sorry," Uryuu whispered miserably into Urahara's green robes.

"There's no need," Urahara said in an equally low voice. _You care too much,_ a tiny voice warned him in the back of his head. He thought he was long past such caring, but maybe not. His mind suddenly flew back to the night of Aizen and the clearing. The reason he had walked so blindly into Aizen's trap was because of Hiyori, his fiery, female lieutenant; the moment he had realized that he'd sent her into danger, he was off and running to her in the forest, despite the Commander's orders that he stay put. How rash and willful his younger self had been. And he had wanted so much to save his young subordinate, even though she had made it obvious that she hated him; even though she claimed, over and over again, that she would never acknowledge him as her captain. He had wanted so much to be liked by her. Loved, even. He had cared far too much back then, and it had inevitably led to disaster.

"Come on, we're going inside," said Urahara.

"It's alright; I can stand on my own," the Quincy insisted, suddenly squirming in Urahara's grip. Urahara dropped his hands as if he'd been burned. He was far too aware of the fact that he'd never been this close to Uryuu before, and this awareness made him pull back, even though the boy was literally swaying on his feet. But he did not fall. Those narrow ice chips were glittering at him again, in steely determination. "I'm going inside. You don't have to coddle me." With obvious effort, the boy slid back the door leading into the shop. He paused at the threshold, looking back at Urahara with a tense, unfathomable expression. He seemed on the verge of saying something, but then he dropped his head and stepped away from the doorway. Urahara listened for each slow, plodding step as the boy made his way down the hall. After a few moments the shop returned to its former sleepy silence, punctuated only by the hollow _plink-plonks! _of the cascading raindrops falling onto the rails.

"Well, that was an interesting display."

Urahara froze where he stood. _That voice. _Urahara turned. Standing at the bottom of the steps, his suit and trench coat perfectly crisp and unrumpled beneath a broad, black umbrella, stood Ryuken. His glacial expression was a perfect match for the icy tone of his voice. The two men simply stared at one another, until Urahara finally broke the tense silence.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to see my son, obviously. Since it would seem that he prefers to spend most of his time here, as opposed to at home, where he belongs."

_What home? _ Urahara thought dryly, but didn't say. He unconsciously reached over for his cane that was propped against the railing. Then he said, flatly, "I don't think that's such a good idea right now."

There was the questioning arch of an eyebrow. "Oh, really? And why is it that you are suddenly the one who gets to decide this, Kisuke?"

"The boy is unwell, Ryuken. Mostly, I think, because of your nasty little ultimatum. You've placed him in an untenable position-"

"-oh, shut up, Kisuke!" Ryuken interrupted frostily. "What business is it of yours, anyway?" A thoughtful pause. "Unless, of course, you're making it your business. Which would be just like you. And I must say, I was a little shocked to see the two of you together on the porch like that, but then I happened to remember what kind of man you really are-"

_You're exactly the kind of man that I thought you were..._

"-just what are you saying?"

"What I'm saying is," said Ryuken in a low, dangerous voice, "that Kurosaki might not be the problem here. Perhaps I've been mistaken. Maybe _you're_ the problem."

Urahara's voice rose in counterpoint to Ryuken's gravelly hiss. "Are you accusing me of something, Ryuken?" The grip on his cane tightened. Ryuken's eyes narrowed into icy slits. _Just like Uryuu. _Chilly, mirthless laughter shook the older Quincy's shoulders. "He's a bit young for you, Kisuke, don't you think? Even younger than I was back then. My, how low you've sunk-"

"-shut up, Ryuken!" Urahara yelled over him. His control broke along with his voice. "I haven't done anything! _Anything_, you hear me! Don't confuse you and me with me and him. Don't you dare-"

"-you're pathetic, Kisuke," returned Ryuken, who began to slowly back away from the porch. "Does the younger Kurosaki know what you're up to? Are you going to break his poor heart as well? You've become the saddest of all cliches, Kisuke. The predatory candy shop owner who likes to have young boys hanging about-"

"-go!" Urahara gritted between clenched teeth, pointing his cane with obvious intent at the older Quincy. There was a heated, red glow forming around Urhara's frame, dangerously intense. Ryuken continued to back away, but said in parting, from the cover of descending darkness:

"Don't threaten me, Kisuke. I'm not afraid of you. Far from it; I'll go toe-to-toe with you any day of the week." There was a slight blur of motion, and he was gone. Silence. Rain continued to _plink-plonk! _over the railings. Urahara's hand was trembling as he slowly lowered his cane with Benihime inside. Ice, like shards of broken glass, coursed through his veins, chilling him to the very depths of his soul. _Goddam you, Ryuken! _With a tired gesture, Urahara dropped to the ground, holding his face dejectedly in his hands. A single, solitary question kept repeating itself over and over inside his head:

_Why was it impossible for him to escape the mistakes of his past..._

_End Chapter 5._

_Next update: Either tomorrow or Friday.  
_


	7. Chapter 6:  The Misinterpretation of Sin

Chapter 6: The (Mis)interpretation of Sin

Lightning flashed through the shop windows, momentarily bleaching the walls and floors, illuminating the cold marble expression on Urahara's face as he marched through the narrow hallway in stony silence. _Ryuken, your words are like poison. You are like the venomous snake in the garden, bringing corruption to all good things. _Urahara's mind was a whirl of bitter, chaotic thoughts as he reached the door of the room that Ishida and Kurosaki sometimes shared. He rapped on the door, then with barely a pause, he opened it, allowing the soft, sultry sounds of music to drift into the hallway.

_I've been tried_

_ And I've been tested_

_ I was born tired_

_ And I never got rested_

_ Harder than_

_ Marble stone_

_ I'm better off_

_ Better off left alone_

_ 'Cause I'm not the one_

_ No, I'm not the one_

_ You wanted it all_

_ But I give you_

_ Give you none_

_I'm not the one..._

A strobe light effect flickered through the dimly lit room, picking out and spotlighting the pale, sylph-like beauty of the boy lying in the center of the bed. The hand covering his eyes dropped, and the boy stared across the room at Urahara, the question forming on his face before the words left his lips:

"What are you doing here?"

"Get up. You're going home."

The Quincy's eyes widened in surprise at the words, at their icy delivery. He sat up then; awareness seemed to slowly creep its way back into his limbs. "Why? What's wrong?" Concern mixed with agitation colored his words.

"Never mind why, Ishida. Just...just go." Urahara choked a little over that last sentence. His eyes took in the contents of the darkened room: the cd player by the bed, the tiny tea-light flickering wanly in its rice paper shell, the empty bottles of pop on the floor, one of Kurosaki's school jackets tossed casually in the corner. Urahara could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears with the low insistence of a bass drum. _It was a bad idea, letting those boys in here._ Lightning flashed dramatically as Uryuu shook his head. "You're...you're going to make me leave in the middle of this storm?" he asked in disbelief.

Urahara swallowed. Swallowed guilt and bile and despair. _It's no good. _He answered with a single word: "Yes."

The dark-haired boy flinched as if he'd been struck. "Why?"

Urahara lunged forward, grabbing the boy by the wrist and pulling him up. Somewhere back in the rational part of his mind he knew this was a bad idea, but he did it anyway. The sting of Ryuken's words was working at him like bitter poison, clouding his judgement and pushing him beyond the constraints of common logic. He knew his actions were irrational, but he felt helpless against them. Subconscious guilt was a piercing barb urging him onward. Edging him toward impending disaster.

_Just like it always did..._

"Why are you behaving like this?" the boy choked out, his sapphire blue eyes wide with confusion. "I don't understand. I thought...I thought..."

"Thought what?"

"I thought you actually cared. I thought..." and here the boy paused, fidgeting under the effort of forming the words. "I thought maybe you were different from my father. I thought..." He broke off, lifting his head to glare defiantly at Urahara. But under the light of the storm, what Urahara saw was not defiance, but the shimmer of unshed tears.

Urahara abruptly released his hold. Moved by those young, mournful eyes filled with despair, he whispered, "I'm sorry."

A tentative hand reached out to him, pale as death in the darkness. A pleading gesture. Urahara looked helplessly at those desperate, outstretched fingers, and then he took the boy's hand and pulled him into his embrace. The boy melted into his arms, choking out a heavy sob in the process. "I can't do it anymore. I can't pretend I like being alone all the time. You and Ichigo, you're all I have. Please, don't make me-"

"Shh," Urahara hushed him quietly. The boy was trembling in his arms; it was heartbreaking, watching such a cold, proud soul falling softly apart. _Not at all like Ryuken. _Urahara cradled him in his embrace, holding him close in the violet twilight.

"What's this then?" A high strange voice said directly behind him.

It all happened so fast. One moment, Urahara was holding the young Quincy; the next, he was flying through the air across the room, colliding with the far wall. His body hit the ground with a quiet thud, his hat and cane clattering to the floor next to him. Lightning flashed, briefly outlining the darkened form of the other person in the room.

"Kurosaki?" Urahara rasped in a quaking voice. In that brief instant, when the light was on his face, Urahara had seen something unexpected: yellow irises embedded in unearthly, oily black eyes. And the voice was off; it was not Kurosaki who was speaking.

"Ichigo, what are you doing?" Uryuu all but yelled. _No!_ _Ishida don't! _Urahara mentally begged. The shopkeeper clambered to his feet, stammering, "Ishida, get away from him!" But his effort was futile. The hollow controlling Ichigo's body turned and grabbed Ishida by the throat. Like he was nothing more than a rag doll, he lifted and swung the dark-haired boy against the wall by the door. The Quincy's head hit the round, hanging mirror positioned there with a dull, sickening _crack!_

"Shut your mouth, you faithless Quincy whore!" the hollow trilled as it held Uryuu suspending against the shattered glass. Outside, thunder raged; the smell of blood was thick in the air. Lightning flashed throughout the room, highlighting the hollow's evil grin. In slow motion, the hollow, via Ichigo's body, pulled Uryuu forward, and it was obvious to Urahara what the creature intended. The boy opened his mouth to let out a scream, but...

...it was abruptly cut short by another sickening _crack!_ as his head once again collided with the glass...

_Several years earlier..._

_ The first persistent, intrusive rays of sunlight crawl through the blinds, chasing out the lingering shadows of the messy bedroom, pressing Urahara awake with warm, insistent fingers. Urahara's eyes crack open; he is lying in bed, and shafts of early morning dawn stripe his face, stripes like those covering his hat lying on the bedside table. He feels dead to the world, and the relentless pounding near the back of his skull makes it clear to him that he may have overindulged in the sake a bit too much last night. "I should invent a gigai that can better handle alcohol consumption," he thinks idly to himself as he stares at his hat, letting his eyes go unfocused, making the stripes swirl together in a green and white fun house-like blur. Next to his hat on the table, he sees a little red and white box. The box is familiar, yet oddly out of place. With sleepy, uncoordinated fingers, Urahara reaches out and picks the object up. Cigarettes..._

_ "Since you're awake, why don't you pass me one of those?"_

_ Urahara freezes, the hand with the cigarettes suspended in the air. A sinking feeling, like an anchor pulling at the prow of a ship, seizes his heart. He turns his head and is confronted with the image of Ryuken, lying just inches from him, his obviously naked form covered with nothing but a sheet. He's not wearing his glasses, and his back is propped up against the wall. Urahara has no idea how long he's been there, how long he has been awake. Watching him. In the early morning dawn, Ryuken is beautiful. Just like Urahara knew he would be. With a lean swimmer's build and perfect, unblemished skin. The sheet pooled in his lap leaves little to the imagination. But Urahara doesn't need imagination, because memories from the previous night begin to assail him full force. Memories of himself and Ryuken. Together. In his bed. Memories of Urahara violently pulling the glasses off his face and the shirt over his head and pressing him back into the pillows, his long-restrained lust for the young Quincy blazing dangerously, madly out of control..._

_ Now, in the early morning sunlight, only cold dull feelings of guilt and regret and a sick, needless desire for self-immolation remain._

_ Ryuken makes an irritated noise in the back of his throat and reaches over to pluck the pack of cigarettes from Urahara's still suspended hand. He draws a cigarette from the pack, but then spends several moments fumbling around in his discarded clothing for a lighter. Urahara drops his face into the mattress. Oh god, why? he thinks to himself. Why did I do this? It was a mistake. A stupid, rash mistake._

_ Just like all of his other stupid, rash mistakes. And now, he will do what he always does with his mistakes. The exact same thing he has already done with the hougyoku: _

_He is going to hide it and ignore it and hope, in vain, that it will eventually go away..._

_End Chapter 6._

_Note: the song used this chapter is the Black Keys "I'm Not the One." A nice counterpoint to their song from earlier, "The Only One." :)  
_

_Next update: Tomorrow or Saturday.  
_


	8. Chapter 7:  When Blood Gets in Your Eye

_Chapter warning: Graphic scenes of the ol' ultra-violence._

_

* * *

_

Chapter 7: When Blood Gets in Your Eye

"Ishida!"

The hollow released its grip, and the dark-haired boy fell lifelessly to the ground, leaving an ominous black smear on the wall behind him. Urahara reached for his cane. In a lightning's flash, the hollow was on him, stomping his wrist into the floor, its foot grinding the bones into the boards. Before he could shout or react, the hollow sucker punched him into the wall, his head snapping back and colliding with solid wood. Stars exploded behind Urahara's eyes, and pain was telegraphing itself from various outposts on his body. His right wrist was completely limp, unresponsive. Time was suspended as more terrified shrieks echoed through the room.

_Ishida. _Urahara cracked opened his eyes just in time to see the hollow dragging the boy across the room by his hair. It dropped him on the bed in a heap and straddled his torso, its yellow eyes aglow with vicious intent. Ishida was still conscious, fighting and screaming the whole time. Blood covered the pillow beneath his head. His eyes, gone wide with unchecked, animal terror, met Urahara's across the way. The pleading tone in his voice was agony to Urahara's ears.

"URAHARA!"

The hollow backhanded the boy, sending a neat spray of blood from his nose over the dirty sheets. "Shut up, slut! Don't speak that bastard's name!" The hollow raised Zangetsu, aiming the point between the Quincy's frightened eyes. "Say it again, and I'll cut out your tongue!" Then, with careful, surgical precision, it lowered the blade to the base of the boy's throat and began to cut, with agonizing slowness, a bloody trail down the center of his chest. A tortured scream ripped from the boy's throat as the hollow toyed with him, grinning its sick, evil grin, its eyes dancing, like a child gleefully tearing the wings off of a beautiful butterfly.

Urahara's mind was racing. Using Benihime on the hollow would only hurt Ichigo, who was locked somewhere inside that body's psyche. But if he didn't use Benihime, then the creature would kill Ishida. The boy's screams reverberated off the walls as Urahara tried to decide what to do.

In a blur of motion, Urahara was up and at the bed, the discarded jacket in his hands. The moment the hollow turned its head, he flung the jacket over its face, then pulled the cord of the cd player out of the wall. In one swift movement he had the cord looped around its/Ichigo's covered head. He drew the noose taught around its throat and _pulled_! Beneath its make-shift hood the hollow shrieked and clawed at its neck, trying to gain purchase on the cord. Beneath the two of them, in a spreading pool of blood, flailed Uryuu. The tortured, innocent apex of a non-existent triangle, the Quincy was trying in vain to get away with slow, agonized movements.

There was no other choice. If he couldn't kill the hollow, then Urahara would just have to subdue it.

"Ishida, run! Leave!"

The hollow ripped the cloth from its head. From between purplish lips it trilled in its twisted, demonic voice: "You can't save him, old man! That no-good Quincy whore is as good as dead, and it's all your fault."

_All his fault..._

Urahara's heart pounded out a steady ostinato of desperation and overwhelming guilt as the struggling hollow continued to taunt him with its words. "I told King...I told him...if he let down his mental guard against me just the tiniest bit...then I would be there, waiting for him. And you were a big help there, sensei. Oh, I've seen the way you've been looking at King's precious little boyfriend. I've been in here watching you, whispering to King the truth. But he's mostly ignored me. Until tonight. Until that little conversation you had with Quincy boy's daddy out on the porch, until he saw the two of you together in the bedroom-"

The noose was yanked tighter. "Shut up!" gritted Urahara. "You don't know what you're talking about; I haven't done _anything-_-"

"It doesn't matter what you've done. What matters is what King _thinks_ you've done-" and here the hollow clamped its teeth down on Urahara's injured wrist. The shopkeeper yelled and instantly released his hold on the cord. In seconds, the creature was back on Uryuu, pulling him by his ankles back across the bed. Urahara grabbed the hollow from behind, and the three of them stayed locked together in a twisted tableau, shouting and struggling their way through the graceless, moribund steps of a life-or-death dance of violence.

"Come back here, you Quincy bitch-"

"-Ichigo don't-"

"-you're not going anywhere. I'm going to carve the skin from your hide-"

"-stop! Let go! Urahara, make him stop-"

"-I'm going to destroy everything King's ever loved, starting with you."

Urahara watched the hollow reach out for Zangetsu, which had fallen from its grasp and was now twisted up in the sheets. Before it could get to it, Urahara snatched it up and threw it across the room. It landed with a resounding metallic _clink!_ near his own cane by the far wall. "Bastard!" the hollow spat, and it viciously headbutted Urahara with the back of its own head. White lights flickered across the shopkeeper's vision, but this time he refused to let the creature go. Teeth clamped down on his hand again, and blood was flowing, thick and sickly sweet in the air. Pain danced across his synapses, making him dizzy with the effort to shut it out. He registered a slight _thunk! _as Uryuu fell off the side of the bed and onto the floor. The hollow had let go of him, and the creature's fury was now fully directed at Urahara. Murderously strong hands gripped him around the throat, and he was forced back into the mattress, the creature's knees digging viciously into his chest. Urahara's vision began to waver and blur as his air supply was choked off.

Thunder rumbled. Demented, hollow laughter arced through the room. In his blurred periphery, Urahara noticed the insidious glow of a small, growing fire; in their three-way struggle, the bedside table had been knocked over, and now the rice paper lantern with the candle inside was aflame. Warning bells of panic went off in the far corner of his brain, but they were distant: a small, insignificant complication compared to the problem at hand. Namely, that he was about to be murdered by an evil demon in the guise of his own student's body.

"Oh no you don't!" There was the rush of cold air, and suddenly Urahara's windpipe was free, leaving him choking and gasping for breath. There was an inhuman shriek and another loud _thunk! _as the discordant symphony of chaos and violence reached a crescendo. Urahara got up just in time to see the hollow looming over Uryuu, who was crouched in a cornered position before the door. There was a flash of brightness as the creature brought its arm down; the Quincy choked out a pained gasp as a long line of blood bloomed like a bubbling red spring across his face. _The broken mirror._ A jagged shard glinted wickedly in the creature's grasp. Urahara watched the hollow raise its hand again, intent on another pass. "Stop!" Urahara yelled.

The hollow froze and turned its head toward him, the red and white mask fully engulfing Ichigo's face, yellow eyes agleam with animal lust. Urahara's eyes went to his cane on the floor. The hollow followed his gaze, then the two of them locked eyes with one another. In a flash, both of them were up and flying across the room, each intent on retrieving his zanpakuto. Shadows shimmied and danced across the wall as they met in a crouch mere inches from each other. There was no hesitation from either of them:

"Getsuga Tenshou!"

"Shred, Benihime!"

The violent impact from the two colliding forces, red on black, was enough to shatter every window in the room. By now, the whole bed was ablaze, and the wind from the storm outside whooshed through the open windows, further fanning the unchecked flames. The room was almost completely destroyed. Urahara caught a glimpse of Uryuu still cowering by the doorway. The boy's white shirt was in tatters, drenched dark with his own blood. Adrenaline alone was probably the only thing keeping him conscious. _Go now. Get out. _Urahara mouthed the words to him through the chaos. Firelight flickered across the boy's bloody face, a sad resignation clouding his usually defiant eyes. Silently, he reached back for the doorknob, and pulling the door open wide enough to allow him to slip through, he crept quietly from the room. He mouthed the words _Don't die, _to Urahara before slipping completely from sight.

_Don't die. _A simple directive, but could he follow it? Ice filled his veins, and panic chilled his psyche as fire crept its way across the window sills; it climbed the walls, took over the room. In the center of the inferno, the hollow stood, zanpakuto in hand, waiting on his next move. _Don't die. _Easier said than done. Urahara raised his sword and said, with a cold, calculated resignation:

"I know that you're in there, Ichigo. And I really don't want to hurt you." He paused. And then:

"But I will if I have to in order to make this stop..."

_End Chapter 7._

_Next update: Monday or Tuesday-ish (because the author is really super tired now). _


	9. Chapter 8:  The Spark of Distant Memory

_Alright, let's take a moment to revisit the past..._

_Chapter warning: sex alert._

_

* * *

_

Chapter 8: The Spark of Distant Memory

_Several years earlier..._

_ Urahara is standing on the main sales floor of the shop. On the counter before him is a small wooden crate filled with colorful round sponges. He picks one up, studying the porous surface beneath the light of a low hanging lantern suspended above the counter. A small shock, like static electricity, zings through his skin at the simple contact, tingling his fingertips. Frowning, he places the small, seemingly innocuous object back inside its straw-lined nest. He looks around at all the crowded shelves, but decides against placing the crate on one of them. It wouldn't do, mixing such harmful material in with the other merchandise._

_ There is the distant click of a door latch, and Urahara flinches. He is jumpy; he feels like an intruder in his own abode. He has been carefully avoiding both Ryuken and Isshin, ever since that morning he woke up to find Ryuken in his bed. The memory of the two of them together sits there, in a far off corner of his mind, distant but undeniably present. He shoves the crate beneath the counter, intent on making his escape. It's ridiculous; he's behaving like a criminal, like an interloper in his own home._

_ Like a man guilty of some terrible act._

_ "Going somewhere?"_

_ Goddam him for being so fast, Urahara thinks as he turns to find himself face to face with Ryuken, who is standing in uncomfortably close proximity, intruding on his space. Behind his usual Quincy scowl, there is something different, something wholly unexpected in his gaze. Something almost predatory. Urahara retreats behind the counter, taking refuge from those pale, burrowing eyes. His hands sweep across the surface of the counter in a nervous gesture, and his gaze flits agitatedly around the room, looking everywhere except at the young man in front of him. He says nothing, so Ryuken speaks instead:_

_ "I convinced Isshin to go out to the store to pick up some sake for us. He is very obliging, so he went immediately." A shadow falls across Urahara's face as Ryuken leans across the counter, draping himself there like potential merchandise. There is a subversive undertone to this seemingly innocent remark, a casual hint Urahara is meant to take. Urahara's heart begins trip-hammering in his chest; he feels cornered, trapped._

_ "I don't think sake is such a good idea, do you?" he says at last, finally meeting the Quincy's gaze. There is a knowing smirk on Ryuken's face and a languid stance to his limbs. Memory assails Urahara then, and dozens of pornographic images flash across the interior screen of his mind, choice scenes from their previous encounter. It's impossible. He can't fight it. Under the slow, rising heat of his own treacherous desire, Urahara feels his moral resolve begin to crumble, to melt. He is no god, no saint. No pious monk confined to a tower. At heart, he is merely a man. A man who has been left on his own for far too long; his decades long banishment from Soul Society has become a burden to him; it's too lonely a sojourn for him to quietly maintain. So he falls. When Ryuken reaches across the counter to grab the back of his head, bringing their lips together in a brutal, soul-searing kiss, he falls. Again._

_ And the result is glorious._

_ Urahara ignores Ryuken's mocking grin of triumph as he pulls the Quincy bodily over the counter. Ryuken arranges himself in a sitting position on the edge of the wooden surface, cradling Urahara between his knees. Urahara kisses him frantically, his hands roaming, boldly exploring pale, angular planes. In the furthest, darkest regions of his psyche, Urahara knows this is a terrible idea; they are out in the open, and anyone could walk in. Jinta or Tessai or Ururu. Discretion chimes a distant warning bell. But he turns a deaf ear to it. Right now there is only want and need and lust-lust for the beautiful boy before him. There is only this sinful fire that needs to be assuaged, doused. Urahara pushes Ryuken back onto the counter; he shoves up his thin T-shirt and presses hungry lips to pale perfect skin, searing a trail of heat down to his stomach. Ryuken is writhing like a cat in heat beneath him; the mewling sound coming out of his throat is like a beautiful sonata to Urahara's ears. So many moans and low hisses. So much for a Quincy's pride..._

_ "Hurry..." Ryuken murmurs, tossing Urahara's hat aside and pushing long, elegant fingers through his messy nest of hair. Urahara reaches down and pries open his fly with jerky, angry movements, their eyes meeting darkly across the expanse of counter top. There is a silent understanding between them: this is not about love, not about softness. Not even affection. It is about a simple wanton need to get off, spiced with the heady flavor of the forbidden. Urahara wrenches open Ryuken's pants and pulls out his already erect member and without preamble, goes down on him._

_ "Yes!" Ryuken hisses, throwing his head back. He bucks his hips, pushes himself further into Urahara's mouth. A forceful hand clamps down on his hip, shoving him back down. A grip hard enough to bruise. When the Quincy reaches for Urahara's hair again, the shopkeeper slaps his hands away. A familiar sound of irritation issues from Ryuken's throat and Urahara ignores it. He teases the Quincy relentlessly, stopping every time a decent rhythm is achieved. Ryuken starts swearing, pelting him with words unheard of from a Quincy's lips. Urahara ignores those, too and continues to lazily lick at his shaft, like a kitten lapping leisurely at a bowl of milk. It's not enough to make him come._

_ "I hate you," Ryuken whispers, and Urahara presses his hip again-hard-letting him know that the feeling is mutual. And yet they don't stop. The torturous teasing continues, and its a game, a sick, twisted game that they both know neither of them can win. Ryuken grabs Urahara's hair again, and this time Urahara lets him, lets him thrust with abandon into the hot cavern of his mouth. Gasps and whimpers fill the air as Ryuken finally gets the friction, the rhythm that he needs. "Uhn, yes!"_

_ A crash echoes through the shop along with a shout of "What the fuck is this?"_

_ And that's when it happens. When everything goes moronically, tragically wrong. Startled, Urahara's head snaps up, banging hard against the lantern hanging above the counter. It swivels and falls, hitting first the counter, then the floor. No one notices it. Not Urahara, not Ryuken. And certainly not Isshin, who is standing in the doorway, with several broken bottles of liquor littering the ground at his feet._

_ Seconds pass, and everyone stays frozen in place, like actors in an absurd tableau vivant. Isshin is the first to move. He turns and quietly walks from the room. His silence, his inaction, is far worse than any ranting or raving he could have done. His silence, to Urahara, speaks volumes. It is Urahara who moves next, abandoning the counter to follow the sound of his back door being hauled open. His heart is pounding with adrenaline; he feels like a man about to be engaged in some sort of battle. He can't believe he's screwed up again._

_ So much for hoping his 'mistake' would just go away..._

_ He walks out onto his back landing. Isshin is standing at the bottom of the steps with his back to him. Urahara doesn't know what to say; he knows only that he must say something. Maybe fall to the ground and beg forgiveness. Grovel. Plead temporary insanity. His mind is still running through the options when Isshin speaks:_

_ "I knew..."_

_ "What?" and Urahara freezes._

_ "I knew...that it was just a matter of time before something like this happened. I knew it. I knew what he was, and yet I decided to put all of that aside, I decided to..." There is a slight choking sound in his throat. "I knew what a cold-hearted, faithless bastard he was, and I still..."_

_ "Someone call my name?" Ryuken appears in the doorway behind him, and Urahara retreats down the steps, trapped between the two men and their slowly imploding relationship. Ryuken's expression is pure ice as he leans over the railing. Isshin raises his head, looks him in the eye. It's almost as if Urahara isn't even there: the unwitting, seemingly forgotten catalyst for all this, his presence goes unnoticed._

_ "I guess you were right all along," Isshin says bitterly. "About Quincy and Shinigami not being able to mix. About them not belonging together."_

_ Ryuken merely shrugs, as if they are debating an impersonal philosophical point. "I never claimed any different."_

_ "So what? What? You decided to sabotage us on purpose just to make some asinine point?"_

_ Ryuken's eyes narrow into slits. "You think I planned this?"_

_ "Didn't you?"_

_ There's a sharp bark of derisive laughter. "You give me too much credit, Isshin. I didn't plan any of this. In fact, I wasn't thinking at all. Not about you, not about us-"_

_ "-which is so like you." Isshin covers his face with his hand; Urahara can see that it's shaking. "You're so selfish, Ryuken. And worse-self-destructive." The hand drops. "It's like a disease with you. An incurable disease. You sabotage all of your personal relationships and push everyone away. Me, your own father, your whole family. But I thought...when we finally got together, I thought..."_

_ "Thought what?"_

_ "That maybe it would be different. That if I loved you enough..." Isshin turns away. His words are choking off again, and Urahara can see that it's an effort to say them. He wants to go to him, wants to wrap comforting arms around him. And then he remembers._

_ He remembers that he helped cause Isshin's pain, that he is also at fault here. Urahara has made a terrible mistake, and all he wants to do is crawl underneath the steps of his landing, away from Isshin's pain-filled eyes and his gut-wrenching words. Ryuken doesn't appear to be moved at all, but it's killing Urahara; he might as well be in Isshin's place, he is so devastated by Isshin's unchecked display of emotion. His unfettered longing. And for such an unworthy object of affection. This Urahara knows too well._

_ "Obviously I was in the wrong," Isshin finally says, in a flat, defeated tone of voice. "This-us-it can't work."_

_ "No." Ryuken agrees quietly, emotionlessly._

_ Isshin's eyes finally turn to Urahara; his gaze finally acknowledges him. Before Isshin can say anything, the shopkeeper blurts out, "I'm sorry." Isshin's expression doesn't change. All he says, in a monotone of truth, is:_

_ "If it hadn't been you, it would have been someone else." Then he turns and walks away. Urahara watches his retreating back, too helpless to do anything. He is rooted to the spot. He doesn't look at Ryuken, who is still standing on the landing above. They do not speak for a long time. Then finally Ryuken says, "Kisuke?"_

_ "Yes?"_

_ "I think your shop may be on fire." Urahara's head snaps up, and his eyes meet Ryuken's coolly impassive gaze. And that's when he smells it._

_ The acrid fumes of smoke..._

_End Chapter 8._

_Next update: Wednesday or possibly Thursday (maybe, hopefully?)_


	10. Chapter 9:  Playing with Fire

Chapter 9: Playing with Fire

Reams of orange flame crept up the walls, dressing the windows in corrupt curtains of light that disintegrated everything they touched. Steel on steel echoed through the fast burning room, as the hollow made pass after pass at Urahara with his sword. Urahara calmly deflected each blow as the creature shrieked and swore at him. He parried merely to buy time. Time to come up with a viable plan, a creative way to end this mess. That, more than outright fighting, was his true strength, his greatest ability. Victory through intellectual subjugation.

Urahara dodged as a beam overhead cracked and fell. The hollow saw this an opportune distraction and slipped in low, spearing upward with his sword. Blond hair was cleaved away mere inches from Urahara's face, and he watched the strands fall, like pieces of pale silk descending in slow motion. And then it came to him. He knew exactly what he had to do. But first, he had to get out of this room.

In a flash, Urahara careened around the hollow and crashed through the doorway, making his escape down the hall. The hollow took this as a sign of retreat, an admission of fear. "Hey! Where're you going, sensei?" it taunted him, watching his progress from the open doorway of the room. Behind it, the flames flickered and danced, making it truly look like a demon emerging straight from hell. "You scared or somethin'? Ha-ha! Well, you should be scared, 'cause once I catch you, I'm gonna pry those lecherous eyeballs of yours right out of their sockets, you no-good, scheming wretch."

Urahara ignored the hollow's foul words and concentrated on reaching the shop's main sales floor. He faltered just a bit at the sight of blood, left behind like some kind of gruesome Hansel and Gretel trail on the floor, mapping the way before him. _Ishida. _Urahara swallowed, determined to push all thoughts of the Quincy from his mind. It was imperative. He couldn't operate, couldn't think rationally with the boy's safety foremost on his mind. It hobbled him, made it harder for him to strategize, to react. Emotion was the enemy of logic. Best to block it out.

Urahara made it to the room with all the shelves and dove behind the main counter. The hollow was hot on his trail, dragging Zangetsu's point along the window panes in an ominous, discomfiting _skree! _"Hey, where'd you go, sensei? Not hiding from little ol' me, are ya? You know, I can sense that rank spirit energy of yours from a mile away." The hollow bounded on top of the counter, plunging its zanpakotu downward. It stuck in the floorboards below, slicing nothing but thin air. The space was empty. "Where are you, you sneaky bastard?" it hissed angrily.

"Here." It whirled to find Urahara standing directly behind it on the counter. The shopkeeper grabbed the creature by its throat, and the two of them fell, struggling, to the floor. Without hesitation or pity, Urahara grabbed the creature's head and bashed it viciously on the wooden floorboards: once, twice, three times. Still, it struggled. Finally, it gave up on trying to pry the shopkeeper's hands from its throat and went straight for the Shinigami's eyes instead. Those jabbing thumbs were enough to make him lose his hold, and Urahara fell back, the shop spinning in a kaleidoscope above him. Vengeful shrieks filled the air as he felt inhumanly strong hands clawing at his own throat. Then another, softer sound intervened:

"Ichigo, listen to me! I know you can hear me!" Uryuu's voice, from somewhere up above, called out.

"Ishida don't! Get away!"

"Ichigo, please...It kills me that you're in there thinking the worst of me. How could you ever think such a thing? That's not who I am. You know this." Suddenly, Urahara was no longer trying to disengage himself from the hollow, but instead he found himself clinging on, trying to hold the creature back from Ishida. They grappled on the shop floor, in a twisted skein of flailing limbs. _Dangerous! Too dangerous for you to be here! _thought Urahara. Yet at the same time the cunning strategist in him thought: _Yes! Keep talking! Keep it distracted! I almost have it! _Urahara fought to pin the enraged creature to the floor. Meanwhile, the flames, like a stray dog, had followed them down the hallway and were now lapping greedily at the entrance of the main sales room.

"Ichigo, come back to me!" Uryuu, beaten and bloody and barely standing, knelt down next to the struggling hollow. He reached a tentative hand toward the wicked red and white mask, a determined expression on his face. "Come back to me..." Urahara felt the hollow grow still in his grip, and he knew then that he had his opening.

Suddenly, the creature lunged at Uryuu, an unholy shriek cutting through the air. Urahara pulled the hollow into a headlock, and in one swift movement, he had the mask pried up and he was shoving a small round object down its still screeching throat. The hollow flailed wildly as if shot through with an electrical current. Its screams soared to an unbearable volume, and Urahara saw Uryuu fall back on his haunches on the other side of the creature, his hands covering his ears, his eyes wide with confusion. Urahara released the hollow, and it fell, writhing on the floor, panting: "You scheming bastard! What have you done to me? What have you done?"

"I'm bringing an end to this."

"You...you've done something! You sneaky bastard!" The hollow continued to rant and rave, even as its movements began to grow demonstrably slower, weaker. Urahara and Uryuu both knelt on the floor on either side of the creature: Uryuu with a bloody, jagged cut marring the side of his face, his formerly white shirt drenched dark with dried blood, and Urahara with his hair wildly askew, his right wrist swollen to the size an orange, his green robes singed by fire. Uryuu's eyes met Urahara's across the way, "What did you do?"

"I shoved a sponge down his throat. Granted, it's a very special sponge, made from some of the same elements that make up the stones surrounding the Shrine of Penitence." Urahara paused, and seeing the look of confusion on Uryuu's face, said flatly, "It literally soaks up your spirit energy and renders you powerless. I almost forgot that I had one left. The rest of them got destroyed in the last fire that burned the shop." Then, as if to call attention to the fact that the three of them were still stuck inside a blazing inferno, a loud, ominous _creak! _sounded from the beams of the roof overhead.

"Urahara..." Uryuu's gaze lifted heavenward, a new-found distress clouding his expression. Yellow flames danced and shimmied within the frames of his glasses. With effort, Urahara pulled the now unconscious hollow/Ichigo over his shoulders, intent on carrying him on his back. His broken wrist, blithely ignored in the heat of battle, screamed in protest. Urahara's knees wobbled, buckled a little under the weight. Uryuu was instantly at his side, saying, "Let me help." But the Quincy looked as weak as a newborn kitten; there was no way he could manage. He was lucky he was still able to stand, to walk himself.

"C'mon, we're going," Urahara said determinedly, even though they were now surrounded by fire on every side. Like twisted vines of fast growing ivy, it had crept in, unnoticed, and taken over the walls and floors. If Urahara had been alone, he would have just chanced it by jumping through a window. But he couldn't, not with all the dead-weight surrounding him, counting on him. So he pressed forward through the fire, through overwhelming heat and acrid smoke, hoping for the best.

The hallway was like a lit furnace leading straight into hell. He could hear Uryuu coughing behind him, clinging blindly to his robes. _Back door, must get to the back door. _Urahara focused on finding his way out through memory alone as his visibility fell to nothing. His body trembled beneath the press of the fire and Ichigo's weight, but his instinct for survival was more powerful. _Close...so close now, _he thought. There was another loud groan from overhead, and Urahara could hear bits of shrapnel detaching and falling in the distance. There was a slight tug on the hem of his robe, and he could hear Uryuu speaking behind him, could hear his trembling voice say, "Urahara...the ceiling...I think it's going to..."

And that was the last thing he heard before a piece of the roof collapsed and fell on top of them...

_End Chapter 9._

_Next update: not until sometime next week._


	11. Chapter 10:  Out of the Ashes

Chapter 10: Out of the Ashes

_The inmates are restless._

_ He is back inside the prison beneath Soul Society, and everywhere, all around him, are the listless, tortured souls of the damned. Damned for saying things against Soul Society. Damned for treasonous acts. Damned merely for having the potential, the inclination to incite rebellion. And he is the warden here, the overseer of this potential band of misfits. It's strange how the leaders of Soul Society have committed such an obvious oversight: that the most dangerous of them all walks among them with the keys, that the one in charge is also the one with the most potential to bring harm. Irony of ironies. The joke is not lost on Urahara as he walks among them, eyes sliding left and right, senses on red alert. There is a strange sort of energy in the air today._

_ There is a shriek from behind him, and an inmate flings himself at Urahara's back. Urahara side steps the attack, grabbing his wrist and flipping him onto his back. But it is almost as if this is a signal: suddenly, they are coming at him from all sides. It's like an attack from a mob of the living dead. Vacant eyes and torn dirty robes and gray features surround him, pull at him. It's so quick, so sudden. Claw-like hands grab his clothes, his hair, intent on taking him down. Their numbers are staggering. He feels himself falling. He is screaming, fighting, and then his head turns and he is faced with a familiar sight. Orange hair and chocolate brown eyes. Ichigo! His student is grabbing him around the throat, pulling him down. His eyes are a wide, empty void. Ichigo! Ichigo!_

_ ICHIGO!_

Urahara awoke with a start, a tightness constricting his throat and his nerves singing out a chorus of pain. White, sunless daylight seeped through a massive picture window, bleaching the colorless walls and floors, turning everything in the room a dull, listless gray. He was in bed, propped up by a mountain of pillows. Reams of bandages covered his arms, turning him into a living mummy. A splint had been secured to his right wrist, the contraption weighing it down. Despite the antiseptic whiteness of the room, his nostrils were still filled with the heavy, smoldering scent of fire and ash.

_Fire and ash..._

"Ah, he's awake at last..."

There was a chiding tone to that simple sentence that nearly brought tears to Urahara's eyes. He managed to turn his head to see Yourichi sitting nearby on an uncomfortable wooden chair, watching him intently with her great, gold eyes. Then, without further preamble she said:

"For a smart man, you certainly are capable of doing some stupid things."

"I know," Urahara croaked. His throat was a parched wasteland, almost incapable of speech. His eyes took in the the enormous room, and after a moment of useless speculation, he asked, "Where am I?"

"Ryuken's mansion," Yourichi answered flatly, with obvious disapproval in her voice. "It was far too crowded with all of us in Orihime's tiny apartment; the place was overrun with people. There would be no peace for you there to recover. Not with Jinta and Tessai and everyone else packed in, too." Yourichi's brows knitted together delicately. "I must say, I was quite surprised when Ryuken offered us the use of these rooms. But then he mentioned something about being responsible for your shop burning down the first time, which I thought was strange..." Yourichi allowed the sentence to trail off; she looked expectantly at Urahara for further explanation, waiting for him to fill in the blanks.

He remained stubbornly silent.

After a while, he asked the question he inevitably dreaded asking: "How are...how are Ichigo and Ishida?"

Yourichi's eyes betrayed nothing. "They are recovering," she answered quietly. And that was the moment that it happened. When he finally fell completely to pieces. The tense dread that had kept him shackled in chains unraveled, and everything that had been holding him together flew wildly, fantastically apart. Urahara began to sob, silently, his shoulders shaking like a man in the midst of a seizure, and Yourichi's eyes grew wide with unaccustomed fright. "Kisuke?"

"Yourichi...I...I fucked up so badly...again...and I...I almost got those kids killed..."

Suddenly, Yourichi was up at his bedside, glaring at him in anger. "Stop it, Kisuke! Stop it! You don't know what you're saying. Those kids are strong; they were the ones who pulled you out of that fire. You don't know how afraid they were for you. How much it scared them, seeing their sensei almost die like that. I won't sit here and listen to you berate yourself. I won't, so just stop it." Urahara gulped in air, his mind reeling, as random bits and pieces of memory came crashing together like the missing parts of an abstract puzzle: _The roof caving in on them...Urahara throwing himself over both Ichigo and Ishida, taking the brunt of the damage...his body catching on fire, causing third-degree burns on his arms and legs...a vague, fuzzy image of both Ishida and Ichigo-his face finally free of the hollow mask-dragging him bodily across the floor, to the trap door leading down to the underground training center...Ishida crying, his voice like a distant echo, saying, "I think he's dead..."_

_ ...Dead..._

Urahara looked down at his bandaged arms. It seemed unreal to him, how close he had come to dying in that fire. With a disgusted grunt, he began pulling at all the bandages, unwinding them, glaring at the dewy, too-pink skin underneath. It was all fresh and new. Orihime's handiwork. _How very fragile this body is, _thought Urahara, marveling. _I wonder if it is possible to make a flame retardent gigai..._He allowed his mind to wander, allowed it to work out the technical difficulties of creating fire-resistant skin. It was far better than contemplating what had actually happened. It was better than contemplating his own mistakes.

But a hesitant knock at the door announced an end to his flight of fancy. The real world, it seemed, was hell bent on destroying his solitude. "Come in," Yourichi called out, answering for him. As the door creaked open, she raised questioning eyebrows at him, her expression berating him for his lack of polite tact. Urahara answered her with a sullen, down-turn mouth. _Must I have visitors now? _his face seemed to say.

Once he saw who it was, he knew he had no choice.

Ichigo Kurosaki poked a hesitant orange head around the door. The moment his gaze alighted on Urahara and all of his bandages, tears began to sparkle and shine around his dark amber irises, threatening to spill over onto his already reddened cheeks. Urahara's face softened as he remembered Yourichi's words from earlier: _You don't know how afraid they were for you. You don't know how it scared them, seeing their sensei almost die like that. _ In a scratchy but strong voice Urahara said, "Now, now Kurosaki. What's with the face? As you can see, my recovery's coming along just fine."

The teary sheen did not leave the boy's eyes. Seeing this, Yourichi got up and announced, "I'll let you two talk alone." She headed for the door, giving Ichigo's shoulder a reassuring squeeze on her way out. The moment the door was shut, Ichigo threw himself down on his knees by Urahara's bedside, sobbing, the same way Urahara had been sobbing only minutes before. "I'm...I'm sorry, sensei! I'm sorry! I don't know what happened...I don't remember much of anything...but...I'm so sorry!"

Urahara placed a comforting hand on Ichigo's shaking shoulder. "Calm down, Kurosaki." Then: "Just how much do you remember of that night?"

Ichigo's face was all but hidden in the pale gray of the coverlet. "It's a blank. Everything. From the moment I came back to the shop, all the way up until I came to, and that's when everything had caved in and-" Ichigo raised his head and looked at Urahara. "You were on fire." Urahara merely looked at Ichigo, until he began to squirm in discomfort. His eyes slid away, to stare pensively at the blank wall. "But what I remember most, what I remember _feeling_, when I first came back to your shop was...was..._rage_. Because I overheard what you and Ishida's dad said on the porch, and I thought..." Ichigo was squirming again, as if it hurt to remember it. His eyes purposefully avoided Urahara's; he continued to stare distantly at the wall. Urahara squeezed his shoulder, a gesture for him to continue. Ichigo's face began to go red and he dropped his face back down into the coverlet. "And then after that, I saw you in that room with your arms around Uryuu and I thought...I mean, I really thought the two of you were...and then...and then I just completely lost it. After that, it's all...blank."

Urahara nodded, staring off into space. He knew that something would eventually have to be done about Ichigo's internal hollow problem. He knew that he needed to call Shinji sooner rather than later. That it could no longer wait. He silently cursed Ryuken and his careless, indiscreet words. But mostly he cursed himself for his own ridiculous part in all of this.

Ichigo's shoulders were shaking again. "I'm sorry, sensei. I was so stupid. I don't know what's wrong with me. But I know it was all my fault. Your store, everything. I know I had to be the cause..." Ichigo lifted his head and looked at Urahara, his eyes begging him for answers. Then Urahara said:

"Ishida...he didn't tell you what actually happened?"

Ichigo's eyes grew dark, dark as top soil, and he pounded the coverlet with his fist. "No! He won't speak of it, sensei! He won't..." And Ichigo swallowed and bowed his head in defeat. "He won't...he won't see me. It's been days, but he won't...he won't talk to me." Despair wafted off Ichigo's frame like the pungent smell of fire and ash. Urahara took his student's shoulders in both hands and gently shook him. He said quietly, but firmly:

"He will forgive you."

Ichigo just shook his head and stared down at the blanket. "No. I saw what he looked like that night. It was...it was terrible. All that blood. Orihime cried when she saw him." The threatening glimmer was back in his eyes as he spoke. "He won't even speak of it; he's so proud. You know that. I can't see that he'll ever forgive me..."

"You're wrong." _Because he's not like Ryuken, _thought Urahara. _He has a heart. _He thought again of that terrible night, of Ishida coming back to try to coax Ichigo back to his senses. _Ichigo, come back to me... _Urahara just shook his head. "Just give him some time, Kurosaki. Wait. You'll see. It will be alright."

Ichigo lifted his head to stare at Urahara through a veil of tears. "Do you really think so?"

"Yes, I really do think so." And Urahara prayed that, for once, he wasn't wrong.

_End Chapter 10._

_Next update: Most likely this Friday. :)  
_


	12. Epilogue:  Love Has No Pride

_Yay! I didn't kill anyone! This fic didn't turn nearly as dark as I intended! Sometimes I'm just a sucker for a happy ending, I guess. Speaking of which, this is it! And you know what? This fic could really use some IchiUri. Yes, it's been far too long! So to all the lovely, lovely readers that have come along on this little dramatic journey with me, I've left you all with something...er...pretty to enjoy! :)_

_Quick note: The title is from a song by Bonnie Raitt._

_Chapter warning: In case the "pretty to enjoy" comment didn't make it clear, there's a sex warning for this chapter...  
_

_

* * *

_

Epilogue: Love Has No Pride

Midnight. The cool breath of the night breeze fanned through the limbs of the heavy, swaying trees. Overhead, the moon shifted and shimmied, playing hide-and-go-seek in between the swiftly rolling clouds. The air was filled with the crackle of electrical heat, a sign of the storm that was soon to come. Standing on a broad branch, high above the earth in a tall tree, was Ichigo Kurosaki, his black Shinigami robes flaring around him like a murder of crows, his zanpakuto glinting in the darkness. His expression was determined, intense, as he waited for the hollow to appear below him in the woods. He waited. But no hollow came.

Ichigo sighed and leapt out of the tree. He had tracked the hollow into the forest but had lost him in all the massive, overgrown foliage. A nasty, hairy beast that looked like a cross between a boar and an ugly rabid dog, with spindly, razor sharp ridges lining its back. He'd almost had it on the soccer field, but the creature had managed to sprint away from him at the last second. After that, its spiritual aura had become almost mute, untraceable. _Uryuu's right, _he thought to himself. _I'm terrible at tracking spirit energies; I'm never going to find it in this vast forest._

_ Uryuu. _His sword shook in his grip as he thought about the Quincy.

It had been almost three weeks since he'd seen the other boy. He had given up on trying to talk to him; Urahara had told him to wait, so wait he did. In the meantime, Ichigo had thrown himself fully into the task of tracking and eliminating hollows. The work was a good way for him to take his mind off of things. Unfortunately, his own thoughts always seemed to find a way to betray him, to sneak around and trip him up. His brain found roundabout ways, either through random memories or vague associations, to bring the dark-haired Quincy into the forefront of his mind. Uryuu was always in his thoughts-_always_-and the Shinigami found it impossible to exorcise his presence.

And in truth, he did not want to be rid of him.

Ichigo raised his head to gaze forlornly up at the moon, watching as it hid its round, white face shyly behind a cloud. _Come back to me..._He had thought the words were his own, but in his head, it was Uryuu saying them, repeatedly, his voice sounding like a distant echo, his timbre like the touch of memory.

_Come back to me..._

In the back of his psyche, he could feel his hollow stirring, could hear its low, gleeful twittering, an evil laughter that was full of malicious self-satisfaction. Ichigo blocked it out. He gritted his teeth, anger scoring his features as he thought about that night. That awful, dreadful night where his inner hollow had taken control of his body and run amok on a vicious, homicidal spree, like some deviant child tearing playfully through a field of sun-lit daisies. Play and violence: they were one and the same to his hollow. It made no distinction between the two. Which was why he could never, ever let it gain control of him again.

Shiro had to remain submerged, subdued.

A quiet cackling sounded in the back of his brain, melding with the sound of swaying trees, the rustling leaves. _Be gone, evil thing. _Ichigo was so preoccupied with the hollow inside of him, that he almost missed the one in corporeal form that was lunging straight at his head.

There was a high shriek and a muted _thud! _and_ s_uddenly, the hollow was flailing, falling into pieces by his feet. Felled by a brilliant blue arrow that was left sticking in the dirt, disintegrating slowly in the night.

"That was careless of you, spacing out like that." Ichigo turned, open mouthed, to stare at the object of all of his obsessive thoughts. Uryuu Ishida was standing above him, on the limb formerly occupied by him, the mantel on his white Quincy outfit flapping lazily in the breeze. The sight of him there, backed by cloudy moonlight, was almost enough to bring tears to his eyes. Minutes of awkward silence ticked by as both boys just stood there regarding one another. Then Ichigo bowed his head and said flatly: "Thank you."

Ishida jumped down from the branch, his movements as silent and graceful as a cat's. Staring at his white outfit, Ichigo observed in a quiet voice, "You've regained your former powers."

"Obviously."

"How?"

There was a sigh of consternation, and Uryuu turned away, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. It was such a familiar gesture, it almost pained Ichigo to see it. "Does it matter?" the dark-haired boy said. Then: "Let's just say I had to promise something in return for them."

The odd tone in his voice made Ichigo's head snap up. His strawberry brows drew together. "Promise what?"

Uryuu's back was still to him. In a quiet voice he said: "I had to agree...I had to promise that I would no longer associate with any Shinigami."

Ichigo's mental denial of _No! You don't mean that! _was instantaneous. It took a little longer for the rest of his body to catch up. He grabbed Uryuu's shoulders and spun him around, his brown eyes imploring him. "You're...you're not serious about that, are you..."

..._you can't have come all the way out here just to say good-bye to me! Forever! _His panicked mind finished the thought for him inside his head. In the background, he could hear his hollow cackling wildly.

"Ichigo..." The whisper of his name on the Quincy's lips, the finality of it, was like a dagger through his heart. Uryuu reached up to remove his hands, but Ichigo grabbed both of his wrists and dropped to his knees before him. Desperation colored his words as they fell unchecked from his mouth, the sentences running together in a nearly incoherent train wreck of language:

"Don't! Don't say it! I don't want to hear it! Uryuu, I know I have no right to demand anything from you. No right at all, but...I love you. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything that happened. I'm sorry that I hurt you. If you want to beat the living shit out of me right now, I'll lay my sword aside and let you do it. I don't know how to balance this out. I don't know how to make amends. Only...don't say it's over. Not for good. Don't say it!" Ichigo bowed his head, staring at the forest floor, watching the grass and leaves blur and sway through a film of unshed tears.

After a long moment, Ichigo lifted his head. He expected to see any number of things on the Quincy's face: sorrow, pity, anger, disgust. But what he saw instead was a look of outright confusion. Ichigo still held both of Uryuu's hands in his own. Uryuu didn't pull away. After a moment he said: "Is that...is that what you thought I came here to say?"

Ichigo's jaw clenched. "Isn't it? I mean, you just told me you promised you wouldn't hang around any Shinigami-"

"-but you're not really a Shinigami, are you? You're just a substitute, a representative."

Now it was Ichigo's turn to look confused. "But that's...that's a really strange way of looking at it."

"I know," said Uryuu, with a slight smile tugging at his lips. "It has all the logic of a Mobius strip. It doesn't quite appear to meet, yet it does..."

"A Mobi _what_?"

Uryuu just shook his head. "Doesn't matter." The dark-haired boy tugged him to his feet. There was no sorrow on his face. No disgust. No anger. Ichigo wasn't the brightest student, and it took him a moment to catch on. "Does that...does that mean you've come back to me?" he asked hesitantly.

C_ome back to me..._

The open look of acceptance on the Quincy's face was his only answer. Impulsively, Ichigo leaned forward and kissed the other boy's lips. Then his ear. Then his neck. He slowly began to trail several worshipful kisses down the front of his uniform. "Ichigo...slow down." There was a warning tone to Uryuu's voice. Ichigo slipped to his knees again, gazing longingly up at the other boy. Despite the warning tone, there was also a look of fire, an undercurrent of desire, in the Quincy's sapphire eyes. Ichigo knew that victory was imminent. "Uryuu, please. Please. Let me..." he whispered in a husky voice, in a way he knew the other boy liked. Ichigo slipped his hand down his body: petting, stroking, rubbing.

"We should...we should wait a bit," Uryuu said, but the resolve was cracked by a voice choked with ambivalence, the logic lost in tones of shaky, thinly disguised want.

"I'll stop if you want me to..." Ichigo said diplomatically, strategically. Still stroking, petting. The Quincy didn't move away. Ichigo looked up again and said, "That pretty little waterfall that you like to practice at is nearby. If you want, we could go there..." He let the sentence trail off, waiting. _Waiting for beautiful capitulation. _Beneath the moonlight, Uryuu nodded his head. Then, with the quickest of flash steps, they were suddenly both standing by the stream, in the middle of a tiny glade. Uryuu said, almost disapprovingly, "I'm not going to ask you how you know about this place."

"I may have secretly followed you here once or twice before," Ichigo confessed, diving in for another sloppy kiss. He could still feel the tiniest bit of resistance from the other boy, in the way he kept stepping back each time Ichigo pushed forward. He decided that, if this hesitation couldn't be overcome with his body, then he would just have to deal with it in words. "Uryuu, just let me...let me love you for a bit. You don't have to give me anything in return. You don't have to do anything for me. Just...let me make you feel good...please?" Ichigo was already dropping to his knees in supplication as he said this, tugging boldly at the clasps on the Quincy's uniform.

"Ichigo..."

"Please..."

The Quincy wordlessly slid to his knees before him, and Ichigo knew he had won. _Yes! Mine at last! _His fingers fought with clasps and buttons; he was determined to get the other boy out of his priestly garments. "What is with this outfit?" he panted in open frustration between feverish kisses.

"Nevermind, just rip it."

"Rip it?"

"Yes. I'll sew it back later," the other boy said. _Good point, _thought Ichigo. He pulled at the high collar, the material coming apart with a loud _rip! _in the quiet solitude. The sound was enough to make Ichigo lose it. He pushed Uryuu to the ground, tossing broken buttons over his shoulder in haste. They _plopped! _and_ splashed! _as they hit the water, blending in with the gently trickling waterfall.

Ichigo kissed and sucked at exposed collarbone, murmuring as he went, "I worship you. I love you. I need you. Stay with me..."

"You're insane," Uryuu's voice said laughingly above him.

"I've been driven mad these last three weeks." Ichigo paused to look at the other boy's face. The Quincy lifted a hand to his cheek, his fingers gently caressing as he spoke. "I'm yours. Don't you know that? I've always been yours; always have been, always will be." Ichigo went back to planting kisses down the boy's exposed chest, partly out of physical desire and partly out of the need to hide the fresh veil of tears that those simple words brought to his eyes. Tears of happiness. His lips continued their journey southward, his hands trailing sparks of wanton fire behind them as they went. He could hear Uryuu's breath hitch in his throat as his fingers petted and pinched and probed at his most sensitive parts.

"Ichigo..."

"Mmm...that sounds wonderful. Say it again."

"Ichigo." The flame-haired Shinigami yanked at the clasp on the other boy's pants: tugging, wrenching, swearing. He dipped his head, and his lips sucked greedily at the notch of muscle above the Quincy's hip. He could hear the boy moaning, could feel him twisting his body beneath him in order to nudge him toward hotter, more prominent areas. Ichigo ignored the obvious hardness brushing against the side of his head. Finally, Uryuu pleaded in a strangled voice: "Ichigo, please..." Soft laughter issued from Ichigo's lips. "And here I thought you wanted to wait," he murmured against pale skin.

"Oh, for God's sake! Shut up, and go down already!"

"Tch. Bossy as usual," Ichigo chided softly, as he moved to take the other boy's erection into his mouth. He moved at a leisurely pace, unhurried. Uryuu was gasping and writhing appreciatively beneath him. Above him, he heard the Quincy mutter to no one in particular: "God, the moon is beautiful tonight."

"You're beautiful," said Ichigo, stopping to stare at his lover. Silky black hair and azure eyes and milky, perfect skin, his body half-exposed beneath the wavering moonlight. "Beautiful," Ichigo repeated, before bending back to his task, taking the other boy with quicker, more virile strokes of tongue and lips.

"That's it! Oh, Ichigo. That's the stuff," Uryuu murmured above him. By this time, Ichigo's erection was rubbing painfully against the earth. The sight of the half-naked Quincy combined with too much back-and-forth stimulation was driving him mad. He was going to finish, with or without Uryuu's help. Mess or no mess. He was going to-

"Ah, Ichigo!" Uryuu arched off the ground, his cock pulsating in Ichigo's mouth as he orgasmed. That was enough to send Ichigo tumbling over the edge after him. The Shinigami groaned, his mouth still clamped around the Quincy's softening member as he came in his robes. He lay there, shivering between his lover's legs as he rode out all the residual tremors, his limbs turning into useless, quaking jelly.

Uryuu's eyes glinted at him in the semi-darkness. "Did you...did you just come?"

Ichigo plopped his head down on the Quincy's stomach. "Yes," he all but groaned. Wordlessly, Uryuu handed him the white mantel from his uniform. In understanding, Ichigo took it and began cleaning off his soiled kimono. "You know," said Uryuu, "We could go skinny-dipping in the waterfall. That would take care of the mess." Ichigo's head snapped up. "Wow, you're bold tonight," he observed, marveling.

"You make me bold," Uryuu whispered. Then: "You know, I've been thinking about you. Constantly. And I wanted so badly to see you these last few weeks, but-"

"-but what?"

"I couldn't come back to you until we were both on equal footing again," the Quincy said, ever the voice of practicality. "And as for your...inner hollow problem, Urahara assured me that it wouldn't be a problem forever." Ichigo nodded solemnly and wrapped his arms around the other boy's waist, using his stomach as an impromptu pillow. He silently thanked the shopkeeper for his sly interference. Then he thought of something else, and his head snapped back up again:

"Wait...you've seen Urahara? But I thought you weren't supposed to be around any Shinigami?"

"Semantics, Ichigo. Urahara's an ex-Shinigami," Uryuu observed reasonably. "They banished him from Soul Society years ago, remember?"

"Ah...there's that Mobi-logic thing again."

"Do you care? So long as we can be together?" The archer's long fingers stroked through his spiky red hair; sapphires glittered at him beneath an indigo sky.

"No. You're right. Urahara's right. I'm the one that's always wrong." Ichigo swallowed. "I don't care about any of that. I only care that you...that you can forgive me. For all the terrible things I've done."

Silence. Then, finally: "I forgive you." It came out in a quiet whisper above him.

Urahara's words sailed through Ichigo's mind: _He will forgive you. _The flame-haired Shinigami let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He wrapped his arms tighter around the other boy, holding him secure beneath the blanketing darkness. He was grateful that the shopkeeper had been right about this. Ichigo couldn't believe he had ever doubted him.

_I'll never doubt Urahara again, _he thought. _Or Uryuu. Why-I'm the luckiest idiot alive. I didn't think a Quincy would ever forgive me for this. Quincys don't forgive anyone anything. Their pride-it's insurmountable. But then, I guess it's true, what they say; it's just like the song goes..._

_ Love has no pride._

End/Fin.

_Reviews, comments, tokens of love? :)_


End file.
